Category: slashing edits

If I could say
your singing vague words
are too flat, I’d offer
my edits in chorus
but no

From your silence
I can see
you’d prefer
token praise
pathway to hell
for all us untalented

I could do that delusion
for you, as has been done
for me, except that
for the truth of now,
I hate everything foolish
false
inadequate
(roses in a vase are dying)

What makes you think
I can’t be chic:
I can do hara-kiri —
I’ve known hunger
and indigestion

A heroic twisting
of the knife
could be poetic
if done
in some colorful venue
for a cause

Bleeding to death
wouldn’t seem so bad
if my
painting in red
had a publicist
a patron
and an honest woman
who would cry
as if
my last
self-indulgence
with her
were a gift
from the
whisper of desperation